Abstract
In 2015 UN agencies working on the challenges facing the modern world system entered a progression of renewing long-term planning agendas that are collectively known as the Post-2015 World. These included the UN platform for disaster risk reduction’s Sandia Agreement in March 2015, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in September 2015, the Paris climate Accords in December 2015, and UN Habitat’s New Urban Agenda in October 2016. We are now past the half-way point for the agendas, and many prognosticate their failure. This paper analyzes what went wrong by positioning the Post-2015 World within the context of systemic collapse. I argue that modernity’s collapse brings us into a liminal state of transition to a new, yet to be name civilization. The liminal state is a period of disruption, instability, and confusion that renders modern ways of being, seeing, thinking, and acting anachronistic. In this paper I argue the UN agendas constituting the Post-2015 world, are anachronistic, which makes them a form of maladaptation to the perfect storm. Given the existential threat of the perfect storm, this maladaptation threatens to push humanity into hard collapse. The paper identifies technocratic rationality as the culprit causing the maladaptation. This paper is a preliminary version of Chapter One to a book manuscript entitled, Lost in Transition: Technocratic Rationality and the Post 2015 World, which I am co-authoring with Kris Hartley at the School of Sustainability at the Arizona State University.
Presenters
Glen KueckerProfessor, Peace and Conflict Sudies City Lab, DePauw University, Indiana, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2025 Special Focus—Sustainable Development for a Dynamic Planet: Lessons, Priorities, and Solutions
KEYWORDS
Complex-Systems, Collapse, Technocrats, Transition, Policy
